I won for most Xmas drama

Don’t hate

“The Shining” Meets Muppets by james_grisson for Instagram, also me on Xmas morning

Christmas Eve started pleasantly enough. Spiked eggnog at my parents’ and practically no infighting among my spawn. After dinner, we all went to a candlelight church service because I wanted to sing about Bethlehem, where Christmas is canceled, and cry in the dark.

During the service, my daughter, nine and autistic, blurted out: “When are we going to light the candles?!” This was followed by loud clapping when the pastor mentioned “Jesus” and “Christmas.”

The rest of the service stumbled through in horror and entertainment as my daughter talked too loudly, kicked Bibles, and repeatedly knocked over my water bottle. When it came time to light the candles, I was certain we weren’t getting out of there without someone’s hair on fire.

The service finished with my fey daughter dancing in the aisles as my son who just entered Conformity Sixth Grade watched in horror.

I have to say I love it when my daughter dances like no one’s watching. She is my creative muse and the inspiration for the name of this newsletter, the Feral Stack. She has helped me hone in on the theme of my memoir:

Is it me or culture that’s misaligned? Maybe I’m awesome and culture is scared of my power but needs my gifts and just doesn’t know it yet.

I digress!!!!

Xmas Eve, a.k.a. Noche Buena, appropriately closed with my daughter vanishing. After searching the church, we found her outside by the car. Can I get an amen?!

This brings me to Christmas, Navidad, the day of our savior’s birth. Even before the ransacking of stockings, before Santa had her coffee, World War Three commenced in the living room. Husband yelling, children crying. It looked like this:

My children on Christmas

And the best screenplay for a family dramedy goes to..…

Did you ever pretend you were in a TV show growing up? My imaginary TV show was called It’s Just the Weather because the weather in SE Alaska was always dramatic.

Buuuut my show was super dull. I grew up in a peaceful household where peacefulness was boring and boring was death.

Drama, high stakes, anger, hilarity, and ridiculousness reminded me that I am alive. This is how I found myself transformed into a singing, man-eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors, a burlesque stripper in Gypsy, and a mermaid who gives up her voice for a man (blarff) in The Little Mermaid. (See pics from our recent Goldtown Theater Bazaar at the bottom of this email.)

In my twenties, I lived in dramatic places like Costa Rica and Kingston, Jamaica, trying to feel something. This is the same reason I belly danced, rapped, danced on tables, taught Spanish to teenagers, jumped out of an airplane, binged on food, and married men who possessed the powers of witchcraft and rode fast motorcycles.

One could say I attracted the drama, invited it in, fed it dinner, and now it lives in my house. Drama reminds me that I’m alive. Plus, it makes for good stories. Because soon enough, I will be dead. And when I am, it will be peaceful and probably boring.

Me, feeling dramatic

Because 2023 is almost history…

My therapist said raising kids can make one feel like Sisyphus, rolling the stone uphill just to have it roll down daily. Raising neurodiverse children while being constantly emotionally exhausted from all the infighting compounds the problem.

In an Atlantic column, Arthur Brooks wrote that the Sisyphean tasks of life can be made more doable by setting goals. (He also said that happiness is a “journey of feeling pain and resolving that pain and being fully alive.”)

FYI, I can’t stand the world goals. It sounds like the name of a gym, or some patriarchal, capitalist construct, or Gollum’s little sister.

However, setting writing goals for myself gave me purpose since I professionally plateaued with my Spanish teaching job. In my other job—my kids—the goals are much harder to measure, the stakes are so high, and the job is much more Sisyphean. So, writing goals it is.

Goals I met in 2023: 

• I finished the first draft of my memoir! now I just have to revise the ever-loving shitake mushrooms out of it…

• won Modern Muse for Writers Quarterly Contest

• won Juneau Community Foundation’s Artist Vibrancy Award

• won Alaska Writers Guild’s Lin Halterman Grant

• won a scholarship to Tutka Writing Retreat (but couldn’t go)

• got published in Hobart Pulp

• got multiple humor publications in Brevity Blog (here and here) and Ploughshares Blog

• sold an article to The Independent & donated the proceeds to JCF Flood Relief

• sold an article to Lilith Magazine about my humor writing idol

  Elissa Bassist
  and her superb book
  HYSTERICAL
  .

• twice finalist as a Kenyon Review scholar

• tiered rejections from River Teeth and Granta Nature Writing course

• spent practically no money on my “writing hobby” 

• started a writing Substack and hit 500 subscribers!

And for full transparency, here are some goals I set but did not meet (goals for later!): 

• a handful of unanswered pitches

• a handful of form rejections from top-tier literary magazines

• applied but didn’t get the Alaska Literary Award

• applied but didn’t get a Rasmuson award (but got positive and helpful feedback)

• applied and was rejected for grants from DeGroot and Sustainable Arts Foundation

• applied but was rejected for Tin House workshop

• applied but was not selected for AWP mentorship

If Goal-Setting is part of your wellness plan, then check out this post by

Dan Blank

on how to use Creativity Cards to outline your goals.

And now, here’s a round-up of some ridiculous pictures from our annual Goldtown Theater Christmas Bazaar—because “frivolity is the species’ refusal to suffer”—John Lahr and Collette Costa. We danced like no one was watching.

Drop a line! Love you!

Summer